


Credulous

by anr



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-11
Updated: 2004-08-11
Packaged: 2017-11-05 16:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/408377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I don't have a choice, Commander." "Yes. You do." & "Vulcans do not lie."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Credulous

The Captain hasn't written them off completely. Not yet. Not while there's still a mission to accomplish and humanity to save.

Not while there's still a chance, no matter how remote, that something-- _anything_ \--can be salvaged from this mess. From this _itsjustanothermission_ disaster. (And why you all haven't learnt by now that the words "just another" and its like are consistent with "Murphy's law", you'll never know.)

You look at the PADD in your hands, at what's left of it. At the shards and pieces and fragments sprinkled over the corner of your desk and dusting your boots. When you move your foot, something cracks, something breaks, something else falls apart. (You can't breathe.)

And now your quarters are too quiet but engineering, you know, will be too loud. So you try the mess hall and cargo holds one, two and five, the infirmary and the bridge, and none of them feel right, look right, are right. None of them are emptyfull. None of them have what (who) you're looking for, searching for, waiting for.

_("Why you?" you'd said, a little petulant, a little annoyed, a little thisisourdayoffdamnitsowhythehellare **you** going._

"As science officer," she'd said, her voice patient and only a touch patronising, "I don't have a choice, Commander," but they weren't her last words, not in this script. You'd rehearsed this almost-argument too often for her to have the last say.

"Yes." A pause. "You **do**." And another. She'd nodded then. Acknowledged the familiarity. Acknowledged the four years, eight months, sixteen days, seven hours and twenty-one minutes since you'd first stood in her doorway, frustrated and not just a little mean, and told her she'd been picking up bad habits.

"Yes, I do." Agreeing with you, she'd shouldered her bag and turned away...

... then stopped and turned back. The shock had almost killed you. "And I will choose to return."

Smiling then, damnit. Relieved that she **got it** and pleased that **she cared** and just so damned gullible wherever she was concerned. You'd believed her. God, you **always** believed her. "Then I'll be waiting.")

Her door and her door code and the pad warm beneath your fingers. You wonder if you should feel guilty for trespassing, and then wonder if it'd even be considered trespassing in the first place. You never did get around to clarifying all the little things that make up this curious little courtship of yours. This interspecies, intergalactic, interwhatever relationship that's become the most valuable thing you know in the one year, two months, nine days, thirteen hours and fifty minutes since you'd cracked and bowed and admitted, finally, to what had been gradually solidifying over the previous yearsmonthsdayshoursminutes. Since you'd said "I love you" that very first time.

(And you've always said it first and you've never said it enough and now...)

Now.

In her quarters, in the dark, and you don't know how to meditate but you know how to kneel and praying comes easy when there's a candle at your feet.

"Vulcans do not lie. Vulcans do not lie. Vulcans do not--"

  


* * *

The End

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGINAL URL: <http://anr.livejournal.com/159320.html>


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